


knock your socks off

by ell (amywaited)



Category: Marvel
Genre: Cute, Fluff, M/M, No Hurt all Comfort, Protective Tony, babys first science fair, nerd bruce, science convention, tony is v impulsive and we love him for it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 10:40:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15580155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amywaited/pseuds/ell
Summary: in which tony does not appreciate bruce's haters.(or, they go to bruce's first science convention, and as all things with them do, it doesnt end too well).





	knock your socks off

**Author's Note:**

> check it out! hope you enjoy!

Bruce has never been to a science convention before. Tony can tell in the way his eyes are darting from right to left constantly, and the mile wide smile on his face hasn’t left since they arrived at the hotel.

Bruce also keeps staring over to watch Tony, which would be uncomfortable if he wasn’t used to it and it didn’t make Tony want to kiss him a lot. 

“You never been to one of these before?” Tony asks, flopping down to lie on the bed that is kind of far too big.

Bruce shrugs. “I’ve been invited to them, but I’ve never had the money for transport or hotels. So, no.”

“You’ve been invited? What for?”

“What do you think?” Bruce asks, “I am kind of a scientist, you know.”   


“What sciencey things, then?” Tony asks, reaching out a hand to pull at Bruce’s shirt and tug him onto the bed too.

“Gamma research, I guess. I am a leading expert. And some of the stuff Betty and I did caught the attention of the big fish every now and then. Betty went to a few conventions. There’s probably videos of her talks online, if you wanted to watch them,” Bruce says, curling next to Tony on the bed.

“I’d rather watch yours,” Tony says. “Speaking of, you nervous?”

“A little, I guess.”

Tony knows that’s Bruce-speak for ‘a lot, but I don’t want to admit it in front of you’.

“It’ll go fine,” Tony tells him. “And if you run off in tears, I’ll go up for you and finish the talk.”   


“Thanks for the vote of confidence, baby,” Bruce mutters. “What time is it?”

Tony chuckles, clicking his phone on. The light of his lockscreen (which is a photo of Peter and Bruce bent over a sparking experiment in his lab) bathes both of them in light. “Five past midnight. You going to sleep now?”

“Mmh,” Bruce says. “Set an alarm for half eight, will you?”

“You got it,” Tony says, flicking through his apps for a second, sending a text to Pepper ( _ We’ve arrived in one piece. How’s the company doing without me? _ ) and another to Peter ( _ Wish you were here! _  with a photo of the building the convention is being held in) before setting an alarm up.

He reads Pepper’s reply ( _ Don’t text me yet. You haven’t been gone long enough for me to miss you. Company is doing absolutely fine without you. Same as always. Xx _ .), and grins before turning his phone off and cuddling up next to Bruce, who makes an affronted murmur before settling into Tony’s arms.

 

* * *

 

Bruce wakes up five minutes before the alarm (like he always does) and turns it off before it wakes Tony up (like he always does) before waking Tony up himself with soft kiss on his forehead (like he always does).

At least Bruce’s schedule doesn’t change whenever they go overseas. Tony’s does, because he wakes up, grunts, and slides out of bed till he’s lying on the floor instead.

Bruce dumps a silvery grey button up shirt on his stomach and a pair of black jeans and then stops in the open kitchen to figure out the coffee machine. Which ends up making subpar coffee, so Tony gets dressed and calls room service instead.

Bruce rolls his eyes at him, before shoving Tony’s toothbrush in his mouth.

“Is that my toothbrush?” Tony asks.

Bruce shrugs. “Probably. You can use mine if you want to balance it out,” he says around a mouthful of toothpaste. “We need to be in Hall E by nine thirty, right?”

“Right,” Tony confirms, leafing through the admission papers on the coffee table. “You’ll be starting your talk about ten, it’ll last an hour to two hours, and then we’ll go look at the projects and throw money at people.”   


“We’re not throwing money at people,” Bruce says, “We’ll politely ask if they need any more funding for their project and then offer to pay for it.”

“Same difference,” Tony says, swallowing the dregs of the Good Coffee, and then grimacing and choking back the Not Good Coffee too. 

“I thought you didn’t like the other coffee?” Bruce asks.

“I don’t,” Tony says, picking up Bruce’s toothbrush.

Bruce just hums, picking up Tony’s mugs and putting them in the sink. Then he starts packing up a backpack with his laptop, a notebook, a flashdrive, the admission papers, and both his and Tony’s phones.

“You’re not talking till tomorrow, right?” Bruce asks.

“Right,” Tony agrees. “Hey, do you wanna go out tonight?”

“I thought we were going to anyway,” Bruce says.

“Are you trying to exploit my money?” Tony demands, hand on hips.

Bruce laughs. “Not at all. I just thought, since there’s no food in here, and you hate cooking, we’d be going to a restaurant anyway.”   


“Too smart for your own good,” Tony declares.

Bruce smiles at him. “Pot, meet kettle.”

Tony tries to side-eye him, but can’t keep the grin off of his face for very long at all.

“Come on, then. You ready?” Bruce asks.

Tony nods. “Yeah. Are you?”

Bruce opens his mouth to say something before stopping abruptly. “I- think so.”

Tony’s heart does a melty thing and he’s across the room to hug Bruce before he can even register moving. “You’ll be fine. You’re smart and clever and hot as shit. You’ll wow every single person in that room.”

“I’m just nervous,” Bruce says. “How do you do these things?”

“Practice,” Tony admits. “They were force fed to me on a silver spoon.”

Bruce huffs what sounds like a laugh. “I’ve never even seen a silver spoon.”

“I can get you some, if you want. Solid silver spoons,” Tony says.

“I don’t need solid silver spoons,” Bruce says, pushing up onto his tiptoes to bump his forehead on Tony’s. “Let’s go. This talk isn’t going to talk itself.”

Tony grins. “That’s the spirit.” He plants a kiss on Bruce’s lips before tugging away to race out of the door before him.

“Tony!” Bruce yells after him, reaching over to snag the backpack and the keycard, before running after Tony.

They probably wake up everyone else on their floor, and the one under theirs too, and by the time they reach breakfast hall and Tony slips in to bag another cup of coffee, they’re both out of breath and two minutes late. But it’s okay.

 

* * *

 

Bruce turns up to the actual talk with slightly red cheeks and curlier hair than when he started. Thankfully, the moderators don’t mention it. Tony isn’t allowed backstage with him, so he says, “You’ll do great,” and, “Kiss for good luck?” Before pulling Bruce into a kiss that is entirely too indecent for the backstage area at a science convention, surrounded by people in black shirts with yellow logos.

Tony grins, wiggles his fingers in a wave and disappears into the crowd. Bruce tries to keep his eye on him, but there’s far too many people milling around. The thought that they’re all for him makes his heart jump into his throat.

The announcer's voice makes him jump. “Doctor Bruce Banner, expert in gamma radiation, nuclear physics, and biochemistry, here to discuss his experience with gamma particles.”

 

* * *

 

Bruce’s name has just been announced when the guy next to Tony scoffs under his breath. He tries to ignore it, because there’s Bruce looking small and scared and overwhelmed all at once and then a lot more relaxed when Tony winks at him.

“Right,” Bruce says, eyes darting around nervously. He opens his laptop up. “I’m, uh, Bruce Banner. Obviously. And I’m here to talk about gamma radiation. As one of the world’s leading experts. Which is a title I don’t actually think I’ve earned,” Bruce shrugs, typing in his password. “After all, all I did was mess around with gamma rays and had a less than pleasurable outcome.”

That gets a few laughs, and Tony can see it relaxes Bruce a little. 

“”So, I guess before we start, I absolutely do not think you should try any gamma experimentation at home. Look how the turned out for me,” Bruce says. He lets the Hulk bleed through enough to colour his fingertip green (Tony’s heart swells when he remembers how much trouble Bruce had getting the Other Guy under control enough to do that).

Everyone in the hall gasps, though, including the two men sitting next to Tony. One of whom whispers to his friend, “Irresponsible. What were they thinking, letting that guy up there? Should be Stark up there.”

Tony breathes once, twice, curls his hand into a fist, and tries not to punch them. 

Bruce doesn’t notice, focused on setting up his slideshow. “-I studied gamma a lot with my ex, Betty Ross. Some of you more dedicated fans might even have seen some of her talks. She started coming to these a lot sooner than I did.”

The guy next to Tony snorts again. “Dumped his ex, now he’s a fag, you know?”

“Stupid one at that,” the other dude mutters back, grinning.

Tony breathes five times this time, pulls out his phone, and texts Pepper.

_ How bad would the backlash be if I knocked two guys out? TS _

_ How knocked out are we talking? Xx _

_ Like, broken noses at least. TS _

_ I’ll look into it. Why? Xx _

_ Sitting next to the most assholish people I’ve ever met. Even worse than Hammer. TS _

_ Christ. What are they doing? Xx _

_ Insulting Bruce during his talk. TS _

_ Hm. Go crazy. I’ll handle it. Xx _

_ Did I ever tell you how much I love you? TS _

_ You can tell me in the new Versace bag. Xx _

_ You got it. TS _

 

God, he loves her. Bruce has moved onto talking about the applications for gamma radiation in modern medicine, and looks thoroughly distracted by the rest of the audience and his laptop. So Tony pulls his Emergency Recognition Cap over his head and nudges the guy next to him gently.

Dipping into his more Californian accent, the one he picked up back when he lived in Malibu and then learnt how to do consistently, he says, “God, what a dumbass, right?”

Thankfully, the guy doesn’t turn to look at him, instead just saying. “So fucking stupid. Shame its not Stark up there.”

Tony represses the thank you and instead chuckles. “Right?”

“If only I didn’t only date smart chicks,” the guys friend says, “I bet he’s a good bang.”

Tony bites his tongue, hard. “Shame you’ll never get there while I’m here, then, isn’t it?” He says, pulling the cap off and glaring up. Both of them look surprised, and under different circumstances, Tony would find it kind of amusing. As it is, he grins and jabs a sharp uppercut into the first guys nose, and it breaks instantly. (Thank you, Mom, for enrolling him in karate classes after his first kidnapping.)

The guy screeches, which draws the attention of practically everyone in the room. Except the security guards. Count your blessings, Tony supposes, because he manages to knock the second guy out with one well aimed punch and then push the first one to the floor and trap him there.

He also manages to get the words, “He is smarter than you will ever be, then I will ever be, and he is not there for you to ridicule or joke about.”

The guy makes a strangled choking noise and then security starts pulling Tony off of him. He manages to yell out, “Say hello to my lawyers, asshole!” Before the handcuffs snap on and he gets taken to the security booths.

 

* * *

 

“What,” Bruce says, an hour later, once he’s managed to sneak in and pick the lock to Tony’s impromptu cell (which is actually just an unused office with an outside lock), “The fuck was all that about?”

“I had permission from Pepper,” Tony leads with. “Any chance you could get me out of these?”

Bruce sighs, glancing back at the door and then at Tony’s handcuffed wrists. He pulls out the pin he must have used on the door and reaches over to fiddle with the cuffs. “I cannot believe you did that. What came over you?”

“Before you get all mad,” Tony says, “Which I realise is pretty justified given this whole situation. Just hear me out first?”

“Benefit of the doubt,” Bruce agrees, setting the cuffs on the floor and curling his fingers over Tony’s wrist, rubbing the slightly raw marks.

“Okay, well, the guys I was sitting next to were being really rude about you and us. And so I pretended to be, well, not me, asked Pepper first, and knocked them out,” Tony says.

“What were they saying?”

“Uh, that you were stupid, and I would have been better, and also that you were a fag, and something that could probably count as sexual harassment, if I’m honest,” Tony shrugs. “I didn’t mean to ruin your talk, and I’m really sorry. But I couldn’t just sit there and let them say that!”   


“Okay,” Bruce sighs. “Apology accepted. Can you get your jet flown here now, or will we have to wait till tomorrow?”

“What do yo- They’re not kicking us out, are they?”

“Tony, you just knocked out two guests. They’re kicking us out for a little bit, yes. We might be welcomed back next year.”

Tony huffs. “Okay. I’m sorry, baby.”

Bruce smiles with the corners of his mouth and holds a hand out for Tony to grab. “I know. If we don’t get accepted next year, we could throw our own science fair.”

(Usually when Tony’s eyes light up like that, it never means anything good).

“Lets focus on getting home first,” Bruce adds hurriedly. “Deal with the press storm I’m sure this has whirled up. Buy Pepper a monster box of chocolates.”

“She’ll be fine with it. She was in favour, actually,” Tony says, “Come on. I can get the jet here in an hour.”

Bruce grins, and lets Tony lead him in sneaking out of the makeshift cell.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> woo! awesome. i hope you liked that. if you did, maybe leave some kudos or a comment? 
> 
> i also posted this to my [tumblr](https://spideysstark.tumblr.com). check it out if you want. its a pretty fun time.
> 
> there should hopefully be another thing coming soon, so keep your eyes peeled.


End file.
